


White Picket Fence

by Ecanus



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 23:23:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8773540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ecanus/pseuds/Ecanus
Summary: Roadhog remembers, sometimes.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Survived another day](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/245791) by Sketchyziedrak. 



> I posted this a while ago over on my Tumblr and I finally thought I'd go ahead and dust off my AO3 and start posting things here again. Also writing in general. That's a thing I need to remember how to do.

Roadhog remembers, sometimes.

He always thinks it’s long gone. Washed away with the decades of blood he’s spilled. Whittled down in his radiation-stricken brain.

But somehow it comes back. Something always reminds him. The earth-shaking horn of a fishing boat coming in to dock. The smell of wet grass after the rain. A white picket fence.

He tries to shake it away, like an embarrassing thought. But it sticks, and it festers, and some days it swallows him whole, making him yearn for a simpler life with an old name and yet want to forget. Forget. _Forget_.

On those days he’s more reckless. More impulsive. He wants the adrenaline to eat him alive. He lets his world become the sound of his chain; the burst of his scrap gun; the loud screech and roar of his bike as bullets whiz past his ears and sirens bellow close behind. He watches reds and yellows blossom in his side mirrors, thunderous booms shuddering over the sound of his engine and a muffled cackle following shortly after beside him, and he feels the falling ash, hot and suffocating on his skin.

It grounds him. It brings him back to now. There is no room for pointless nostalgia left in his mind when he feels death breathing down his neck.

But it ends, eventually. It always does. In the outback it was worse. Despite the constant vigilance needed against the raiders and murderers, it was quiet. So quiet. So much of nothing that the mind had to wander to keep whatever sanity was left. And it would wander and wander and he would remember. Remember. _Remember_.

A boat. A white picket fence. A home.

There’s something else, now. Something that keeps out the quiet even after the threats are gone. That keeps the thoughts away.

Junkrat hobbles in to the motel room after their escape. He babbles with excitement, grunts at the mild wounds covering his torso, watches Roadhog with wide eyes as he enters in after him with their few belongings. They go through their small routine of stripping their belts and ammo, of Roadhog manhandling Junkrat in to the bathtub to wash off, of sterilizing and bandaging wounds.

And all the while, Junkrat’s talking, talking, talking. About the heist. About tomorrow. About things that don’t really matter. And normally the bigger man would stop him; he’d tell his boss to shut up and he would, for maybe a minute. But this time he doesn’t. He lets that voice fill the room, fill his ears, fill his head.

And afterwards Roadhog sits on the edge of the bed, hears the bed creak in time with his bones, and he unclasps the mask with a long, exasperated sigh.

“Oi, ‘Hog, you’re bleeding, mate,” Junkrat says, in the process of removing his peg leg beside him.

Roadhog furrows his brow, reaching up to his forehead where the younger man is looking, and he feels something slick up the tips of his fingers. There’s a cut there, just below his hairline, and he wonders how it got there before he looks down at his mask to see a deep slash in the leather too. A bullet, he thinks. Barely missed.

The last of the adrenaline and the focus begin to slip away; give way to the pain pulsing from the wound, to room in his mind to wander—

And then there’s Junkrat, straddling his lap, the first aid kit they’d used earlier for his wounds now settled on his thigh. And he starts to disinfect and work on Roadhog’s wound without a word.

A frustrated grunt leaves the older man’s mouth, but he lets him work. He knows Junkrat can stitch; can do it with the same strange precision he does when making explosives, all steady hands and deft fingers when he really needs them to be. So Roadhog sits still and grits his teeth against the pain.

And he looks at Junkrat.

Looks at the way his tongue sticks out slightly between his teeth as he works. The expressiveness of his brows. The tilt of his head.

The way he’s distracting even when he’s quiet.

“Almost gotcha there, Roadie,” Junkrat says suddenly, voice still small as he finishes up, pressing the square of gauze to the stitches. “They’re catchin’ up to ya. Maybe we gotta think of some fail safes, right?” He moves his hands away from Roadhog’s forehead, looks down to catch his stare. And the older man can see the stupid, stupid plan forming behind those eyes. “Y’know, in case they kill ya? What’s that thing they always say… ‘the bigger they are, the harder they fall’? Strap some bombs on your belt and tip you over and—“

And Roadhog knows Junkrat isn’t really entertaining the thought of him dying, nor that this plan isn’t really a fail safe. He’s thinking of the explosion. The idea of a Roadhog-sized bomb tipping over, and the force of the fall suddenly erupting into a catastrophic blaze for Junkrat to behold.

The giggle bubbling behind the younger man’s lips suddenly comes out in a loud “Kaboom!” and a deafening bout of laughter, hands raising in emphasis, leaning back as the titters seize his lungs.

Roadhog grunts and rolls his eyes, and he motions to give Junkrat’s shoulder a good slap, or maybe to shove him off. But what he gets is more of a tender grip, pulling him in so he doesn’t fall back. Junkrat’s eyes are closed as his body shakes with joy at his own imagination, his forehead falling to touch Roadhog’s, his flesh hand finding its way to his hair.

Roadhog looks at him. Looks at him laugh without a care and looks at the hint of crow’s feet beside his eyes despite his youth.

And Roadhog closes his eyes and lets that slowly dying laugh fill his ears. Inhales and smells that familiar soot and fire that can never quite be washed away by cheap motel soap. Holds him and feels that tremble of his bones against his skin and the hand in his hair. Sighs and fills his mind with only this, _this_ moment, and thinks: This is good.

This is home.


End file.
